stubby wrote:These risks sound like "he might have more temper tantrums in the future" and "the rest of the family might also have temper tantrums." These are not legitimate reasons for infantilizing yourself.

I'm not trying to infantilize myself, I'm just venting on all the shit wrong with my life right now.

stubby wrote:On the other hand, if you come from a planet where temper tantrums are something that people respect and tolerate, it explains why you're always so surprised when no one respects and tolerates your temper tantrums here. So, news flash: normal human beings don't put up with the kind of behavior that you put up with from your family, and that you expect other people to put up with from you. It doesn't even occur to us that anyone would put up with that, or that they would think that it was normal to do so.

Yeah, you see this is actually useful advice, because I DON'T KNOW WHAT FUCKING NORMAL PEOPLE DO!!!

Me and my sister use to be forced to stay up most of the night, sort 70 some plates of vegetables apiece, then get up and four in the morning to pile in the van for a three hour drive half-way across Iowa just so we could enter them in the fucking State Fair!

How many people here have half the pieces to a fucking mini-golf course sitting in their garage right now, show of hands?

My parents, BOTH OF THEM, are psychos!

You think Colette's Asian Education-mama's bad?Dude I would have KILLED for parents like that; parents who don't confuse instilling a strong work ethic for free garden labor.

stubby wrote:He's twice your age, grow a pair. He may have the power of temper tantrums, but he doesn't have the strength or endurance of a 24-year-old. Unless he sits on you and smothers you with his fatness, there's no way he can physically overpower you unless you let him.

Yeah Mike, tell my subconscious that...

Hell, I'm not even sure if he raises his hand over his head I won't flinch out of reflex...

stubby wrote:You're using this argument on the wrong guy. When I was your age I was going out of my way to piss off guys like that as often as I could. (see earlier mentions of getting myself shot etc.)

Uh man, I know you are awesome and everything, but getting yourself shot isn't a very good argument for proactivity...

stubby wrote:Avoiding turning into your dad is more important than avoiding injury.

Your life sounds pretty shitty, you shouldn't be arguing so hard in favor of staying exactly where you are. You should be thinking in terms of what sacrifices you need to make in order to take control of your situation. Because otherwise it's just going to be another forty years of what you've got right now, and then you're the fat bearmanpig.

Dude, I'm not arguing for staying where I'm at!

I just got out of a Vocational Rehabilitation meeting today, so I'm not just sitting on my ass all day waiting until I go full Manbearpig.

It's just out of all of my contingencies, the most prudent course of action is waiting for my sister to move out of the house in Iowa City, so I'm going to be stuck here for the next two to three years...

I know you want me to be all "seize the day" and whatever, but honestly rushing into things is probably what got my parents into this shitty marriage in the first place...

stubby wrote:12 gauge buckshot. He was "half joking," which is what people say when they don't want to be held responsible for the half that isn't joking. Luckily, the shot mostly missed. But not completely.

...Yeah, that's something my father might do...

Nowadays it's more likely I'd get caught by one of the many loose rounds of ammuntion he has scattered in his piles of crap cooking off though...

Natalya wrote:Climb out the fucking window. If there is a screen, remove it, or cut it out with a knife. No one will notice. Stop making fucking excuses. Wait till he is asleep if you have to. If he asks where you're going, tell him you're going out. You want a cool life? Stop being jelly mad booty bothered and fucking do something.

Natalya, I have a basement... I'm not completely without refuge...

It's just there are only so few of them here at home, and there is no real social scene that isn't a half-hour drive away......At least not any that my anti-social ass knows of anyways.

Colette wrote:You're going to a party? If your father doesn’t want to tag along then it sounds like your life isn't too crappy.

Dude, who is going to a party?

Can I come?I promise I'll be quiet, like Batman, and stick to the shadows... like Batman...

Colette wrote:Also, hearts were made to be broken. Go give the old fart a heart attack and make everyone in your household thank you for stuffing his insolence. You’ll ride out the familial grief storm after a few years.

Yeah, as much as I'd like to put the Big Dog out of my misery, considering I've got a grandfather in the home that might just ask for that treatment if his wife goes first I doubt it'd be very appropriate...

Colette wrote:Buy an assault rifle before Obama bans them and your father will never try to attack you. If it’s too late then a shotgun works fine too.

Dude I could set the bum on fire while he sits passed out in his chair...

...It's just then I'd have to clean up three hundered pounds of burnt Lazyboy and Dead Guy...

IVhorseman wrote:Your dad sounds like one of my friends: right now I'm looking at my coffee table and count four things of his that he's left here, and that's just from the other day: we have a whole box full of his crap. You can't fix him. But you can fix you.

Hey can your friend teach my dad to keep track of his shit?

...Seriously, the guy has enough crap in a Cadillac that your lucky if he has room for a passenger!

If you need alone time to get out of the house, try working out if you've got the funds for a gym membership (and if not theres plenty of other options, if you live in the middle of nowhere I am sure there are many heavy things to lift and curl in the woods).

This will make you physically less susceptible, more confident, more attractive, and less likely to turn into your dad when you get older.

Dude, you're 24. Your parents do *not* have any right to run your life anymore, the only reason they are influencing you at all is because you are letting them. Nobody is saying you should hop on the next freighter and try to find a job doing IT work in Iowa City or whatever with all of twenty bucks to last you until you find a job, we are saying that you should think about working from home if there's no employers in your area that are hiring for anything you're capable of (which is a lot more than you think- every occupation is just a set of skills that anyone can learn and get good at in time).

Look at the "Request Gigs" section. There's a bunch of stuff people are willing to pay you five bucks for. Pick one that seems easy, do it, earn five bucks. Earn more bucks. Work out. Earn money. Work out. Earn money. Repeat until you are no longer afraid of physical assault and have enough of a nest egg that you can cover your expenses for at least three months (so, like $2000 ish, because it seems like living space is cheap where you are). Please don't turn into some kind of horrible goony fuck that is still in his parent's basement after thirty years of existence, just don't' do it, come on man.

I am sure that by December of this year you can put yourself in a position where you are making a living wage and shortly thereafter living independently.

EDIT: shit, you're a vet? VA will make this whole process easier on you by paying your training and living costs for a while, but don't use that as an excuse for sitting around Reddit all day man. Sit around on Reddit for like a sixth of the day and use the two things you have going for you right now-

You don't have to spend (any meaningful amount of) money in order to continue livingYou have an internet connection

And use them to get what you want. It's not much of an advantage, sure, but if you lived in non-US middle of nowhere you wouldn't have internet and then you'd be even more screwed.

Just go, seriously dude, go to fiver, pick a thing you like, and do it before you go to bed today. $5 is a start.

Keldoclock wrote:If you need alone time to get out of the house, try working out if you've got the funds for a gym membership (and if not theres plenty of other options, if you live in the middle of nowhere I am sure there are many heavy things to lift and curl in the woods).

Or I could just pull out that old Bow-flex my parents bought for no discernible reason... If I can ever figure out how such a mystical contraption of pulleys and rods actually works...

And yeah dude, I don't even have woods out here...Just cornfields as far as the eye can see.

Keldoclock wrote:This will make you physically less susceptible, more confident, more attractive, and less likely to turn into your dad when you get older.

He was just too use to having my fast metabolism (Seriously, he looks fucking identical to me in his junior high yearbook...) that when it slowed down at thirty, he blew up like a balloon.

So now I'm at this odd place where I need to remember TO eat, but then remember to watch my calorie intake...

Keldoclock wrote:Dude, you're 24. Your parents do *not* have any right to run your life anymore, the only reason they are influencing you at all is because you are letting them. Nobody is saying you should hop on the next freighter and try to find a job doing IT work in Iowa City or whatever with all of twenty bucks to last you until you find a job, we are saying that you should think about working from home if there's no employers in your area that are hiring for anything you're capable of (which is a lot more than you think- every occupation is just a set of skills that anyone can learn and get good at in time).

Well technically my mother is my Legal Guardian... but that is also an insurance and disability thing...

Really though I'm not good at working from home, my mother kind of fucked me up when it came to bringing home schoolwork and I end up not being able to properly motivate myself in a home setting.

Look at the "Request Gigs" section. There's a bunch of stuff people are willing to pay you five bucks for. Pick one that seems easy, do it, earn five bucks. Earn more bucks. Work out. Earn money. Work out. Earn money. Repeat until you are no longer afraid of physical assault and have enough of a nest egg that you can cover your expenses for at least three months (so, like $2000 ish, because it seems like living space is cheap where you are). Please don't turn into some kind of horrible goony fuck that is still in his parent's basement after thirty years of existence, just don't' do it, come on man.

I am sure that by December of this year you can put yourself in a position where you are making a living wage and shortly thereafter living independently.

I will however keep this in mind man, thanks.

...Hell, maybe I could direct dad there, he doesn't realise how unemployable he is so he is on the computer most days playing the stock market.

Keldoclock wrote:EDIT: shit, you're a vet? VA will make this whole process easier on you by paying your training and living costs for a while, but don't use that as an excuse for sitting around Reddit all day man. Sit around on Reddit for like a sixth of the day and use the two things you have going for you right now-

You don't have to spend (any meaningful amount of) money in order to continue livingYou have an internet connection

Dude, what?Where did you get that idea?

I mean, yeah, military service was one of my contingencies, but the family frowns on it for some reason...

...I think it's because they believe me naive enough to join something like the Army Rangers, and if there poor fragile boy got through boot camp they'll then ship me off to some hellhole on the other side of the world to get blown up.

Pff, it's not like I couldn't take the Marine Corps nastiest drill instructor with a shit-eating grin on my face, my mother has called me far worse, and are you going to tell me our armed services has gotten so incompetent that they are sending people with several hospital psych visits on their record into live combat?

Tzan wrote:You've mentioned this before, but I find it Slightly Annoying that a store that only sells batteries even exists.

Dude, lots of shit needs batteries...

...If you can explain to me how a store only selling holiday knicknacks stays in business I'm all ears though.

You said you went to a Vocational Rehabilitation thing, I guess I got it confused with that program that helps ex-military people find work, nevermind.

I find that money is pretty good motivation to get me to do stuff.

Seriously. If you haven't already, do a fiver thing. Just.... fuck. Do something - the longer you sit around the more easy it is going to be to delude yourself into thinking there is no hope in your situation. It's really easy to just make a cocoon of misery and sit there feeling sorry for yourself and never change anything. Even if it's baby steps like putting five dollars towards your "get me the fuck out of here" fund, at least you have some kind of agency towards your future.

@ battery discussion: Fabric stores always make me sad... there's always like, one person working in this giant store full of bolts of cloth, and it's just really obvious that at least in America nobody bothers with re-doing furniture or making their own own clothes or anything and these stores are all just slowly dying

Silverdream wrote:Also I think you should buy as much helium as possible while it's cheap and resell it when corporations are desperate.

Dude, do you know how expensive large helium tanks are?

Fuck that shit, we're becoming Air Pirates!

ARRRRG!!!

Keldoclock wrote:You said you went to a Vocational Rehabilitation thing, I guess I got it confused with that program that helps ex-military people find work, nevermind.

Well the military has it too, Vocational Rehabilitation is just getting someone ready to rejoin the workforce, hence rehabilitating them for a vocation.

Keldoclock wrote:I find that money is pretty good motivation to get me to do stuff.

For me not so much...

...I mean, that's the problem with having no self-worth, you just don't spend money on yourself.

So I've been able to maintain a three hundred dollar cash nest egg, and now I've got government food assistance (which is mostly spend on Cookies, Milk, and single person food items) and Social Security disability (which I think my mom might be laundering what I'm supposedly paying her for "living expenses" to pay off my student loans...)

It's actually a sign that I'm in a pretty good mindset when I'm willing to buy Lego and shit for myself... even if I do feel terribly guilty for it...

Keldoclock wrote:Seriously. If you haven't already, do a fiver thing. Just.... fuck. Do something - the longer you sit around the more easy it is going to be to delude yourself into thinking there is no hope in your situation. It's really easy to just make a cocoon of misery and sit there feeling sorry for yourself and never change anything. Even if it's baby steps like putting five dollars towards your "get me the fuck out of here" fund, at least you have some kind of agency towards your future.

Keldoclock wrote:@ battery discussion: Fabric stores always make me sad... there's always like, one person working in this giant store full of bolts of cloth, and it's just really obvious that at least in America nobody bothers with re-doing furniture or making their own own clothes or anything and these stores are all just slowly dying

I dunno about you but three hundred bucks is basically nothing for cost of living in my area. It's like, *maybe* enough to cover a month's rent of a room (not a studio apartment, but a room in someone else's house/apartment), leaving you with nothing for food or all other assorted bullshit and unexpected costs that come with being poor...

If you think you can earn a living doing reviews of lego, cool. Just be aware that that may totally not work out and there are more conventional options for employment then starting your own business. I would be very impressed if it took you less than a year after you started doing your website for it to start turning a profit.

I don't spend much money on myself either, but that is more due to BILLS BILLS AUGH making all of my money magically vanish at the end of every month. I haven't bought lego in like, shit, six years? something like that, unless you count brickarms, in which case its four years.

The problem with being poor is that you have so little capital that every possible fucking thing will screw you- car breaks down? screwed. Natural disaster? screwed. Injured? better hope Medicaid will cover it. Instead of being able to fix your house or appliances when they START to show problems you can do nothing but wait till they completely break down and dip into your depressingly small emergency funds to buy whatever the store has at the time and just..... fuck.

At least we're in the States and we have internet. If it wasn't for that we wouldn't be able to pick up languages or other marketable skills in our spare time, and we'd have much less resources when it comes to DIY stuff. For all that I complain, this sure beats living in a shipping container raising guinea pigs in a warzone.